Public Bill Committee

[John Bercow in the Chair]

Clause 16

Information: supply by public bodies

Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 23, in clause 16, page 8, line 44, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information may only be supplied under subsection (1) if the relevant person or body mentioned in subsection (2) regards the provision of the information to be proportionate to the fulfilment of the aims of the local education authority in the exercise of its functions under this Part.’.—[Mr. Gibb.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

John Bercow: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
No. 24, in clause 16, page 8, line 44, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information may only be supplied under subsection (1) if the local education authority requesting the information regards the provision of the information to be proportionate to the aims of the local education authority in the exercise of its functions under this Part.’.
No. 113, in clause 62, page 34, line 5, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information may only be supplied under subsection (1) if the request for information is proportionate to the purpose of providing services in pursuance of section 54 or 56(1)(b).’.

Jim Knight: I trust that we are all refreshed after our short break. It might be helpful if I began by addressing the two questions raised by the hon. Member for Yeovil. He asked me, first, which provisions are currently available to pre-16s and, secondly, whether data protection legislation applies to data kept at home by employers. Section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which clause 62 replicates, already enables information sharing for 13 to 19-year-olds and indeed, those up to the age of 25 with learning difficulties. That is a direct answer to a direct question.

David Laws: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Knight: I may as well answer the second question, because the hon. Gentleman may well have a question about that too. I am sure that there may be one or two hon. Members who have computer data about their constituents at home or even on their mobile phones. If anyone holds data about individuals which they use to deliver a service or to carry out a business they would be subject to data protection requirements. They would have to register, and the law in respect of data protection would apply to them.

David Laws: On the first point, I hope that I am not confused, but I thought the Minister said that these powers were available under an earlier Act for 13 to 19-year-olds. Could he explain what he means by that? How are they covered and why is this further extension necessary?

Jim Knight: The clause is based on section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which enables public bodies to share information on young people with Connexions. The information supplied may include up-to-date information on 16 and 17-year-olds relating to their education, training and areas of particular need, including health, family, personal and social need, as well as changes in their educational circumstances. The clause relates to the established system that Connexions providers use, and it does not change or add to the data that that system holds.
We want Connexions to have access to exactly the same information about young people as it does at the moment. The clause meets the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998, and has been proven to do so. Access to personal data will continue to be strictly controlled in compliance with data protection laws. Without wishing to make a pun, I hope that ending with the word “laws” satisfies the hon. Member for Yeovil.
As I have set out in relation to previous clauses and in relation to this clause, it is for every public body to satisfy itself that the extent of the information it releases to local authorities and Connexions service providers under the provisions is proportionate to the benefits of increasing participation in education and training, and will enable local authorities to be satisfied that when requesting information they are acting proportionately. Without this provision we judge there to be a significant risk that a greater number of young people would become NEET—not in education, employment or training—resulting in the poor outcomes that are more prevalent in that group.
It might help if I set out briefly for the Committee the circumstances in which disclosure of information will take place under the provisions. In practice, the bulk of shared data moves from the local authority and the learning and skills council to Connexions through secure transfer. The other bodies listed would disclose information only on a case-by-case basis, when the lead professional would call on the skills of other agencies in the area to help resolve problems. For example, the vast majority of data exchanges involving the police or youth offending teams—concerns were raised about that this morning—would entail data going from that part of the criminal justice system to Connexions, not vice versa. This is therefore very much a matter of those bodies informing Connexions on a case-by-case basis of what is going on in respect of certain individuals.
Data would be shared verbally at a case conference or in a one-to-one meeting, either face to face or by telephone. Where appropriate, notes taken by the individual would then be entered on the client case load information system. Details would routinely include the name and contact details of other professionals dealing with the young person and a brief summary of the issues that the young person was facing at the time. Such entries are time bound and reviewed regularly. Connexions personal advisers would make contact with that professional to ensure that the circumstances had not changed and that the data were up to date. I can assure the Committee that all information sharing would be based on the young person’s needs.

Nick Gibb: Why does Connexions need such information to provide the service that it does to young people?

Jim Knight: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as a reasonable man, will understand that the fact that a young person had got into trouble with the law or was working with the youth offending team would be relevant information for a personal adviser considering the support and advice that they needed. That is why it is appropriate that such data sharing exists and, indeed, has existed quite successfully since the 2000 Act came into force.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again: he is being very patient. As was mentioned earlier, the explanatory notes to clause 16 state:
“The purpose of the clause is to allow public bodies to provide information to local education authorities where other statutory provisions would prevent their doing so.”
To what does the latter part of that sentence relate?

Jim Knight: In the intervening period between 1 pm, when this morning’s sitting ended, and 4 pm, I looked again at that sentence, and I accept that it could be worded better. We will redraft the explanatory notes before the Bill goes to the House of Lords, we will ensure then that the wording is improved.
Clauses 16 and 62 are all about giving the public bodies to which they apply the power to share information. Without such a power in this or other legislation, they could not share information as proposed. In that sense, they would be prevented from making disclosures without such an express power. That is not the same as overriding other legislation, and the provisions are not quite as broad as the reader would think from the explanatory notes, because other legislation that, as far as we are aware, does not contain express restrictions on such disclosures cannot be overridden. Just because there is a statutory power in clauses 16 and 62 to provide information, that does not mean that bodies must not act in accordance with other relevant legislation, such as the Data Protection Act and the right to respect privacy in the Human Rights Act 1998.

David Laws: For the sake of clarification, if this part of the Bill were deleted, and given the powers that already exist, what would be lost about which the Minister would be concerned?

Jim Knight: What would be lost is the transfer of functions that we are seeking from Connexions services back to local authorities: that data sharing could not proceed. As I described, we are translating section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to allow that transfer to take place. We are not changing the legislation in any other way, and it has been running, as I have tried to stress, successfully ever since that Act was brought into force.
The proportionality test for these clauses is already met by the requirement—

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—
 Jim Knight rose—

Nick Gibb: Will the Minister allow me?

Jim Knight: Of course. Given that I had not even started to speak, it would be churlish not to allow the hon. Gentleman to speak.

Nick Gibb: I was about to intervene on the Minister when the Division bell rang. First, I wanted to ask him why information about someone’s involvement with the police should be passed to the people in the local authority who are trying to promote their education or training. I am still baffled as to why that should be necessary. Secondly, will he explain why those same people in a local authority need the health records of a 16 or 17-year-old to promote participation?

Jim Knight: By way of clarification, my understanding is that whole health records or indeed whole criminal records will not necessarily be passed from the relevant public bodies to Connexions. However, information that those public bodies think will be helpful in providing support and advice may be passed on. In the Committee’s early stages, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the value of the personalised, informal training and support provided by the likes of Fairbridge, Barnardo’s, the Prince’s Trust and some of the other bodies from which we took evidence. If somebody has got into trouble with the law and if they are under the watchful eye of a probation officer and a youth offending team, there might be issues in that person’s life that the officers working for those public bodies would know about and that it would be very useful for Connexions to know about, too, so that it can provide support and best serve the needs of that young person.
That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about public bodies acting against young people; we are talking about support being properly tailored to the individual personal needs of those young people. Before I move on to the issue of health, it is also probably worth saying that in recent years, we have seen a rapid expansion in the number of police and community support officers, who often work closely with youth support services and may take part in case conferences on young people in which Connexions, too, is involved. If those officers are taking part in a case conference because there are problems in a neighbourhood, perhaps related to antisocial behaviour by certain individuals, it would not be appropriate for those officers to be prevented from passing on knowledge that they have about an individual, so that better support could be provided and so that those individuals could be better engaged in positive activities rather than negative ones. It is highly appropriate that they should do so and, as I said before, that has worked well since the Learning and Skills Act 2000 came into force.

David Laws: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Knight: I was just about to move on to discuss the health matter, but seeing as the hon. Gentleman is looking beseechingly at me I will give way to him.

David Laws: My question is about policing. Over the lunchtime break, I wonder whether the Minister had an opportunity to reflect on the issue that we discussed before lunch, about whether or not the police would be able to give information to a local authority that would relate to the local authority’s enforcement powers rather than to its support powers.

Jim Knight: I did reflect briefly on that point. The police do not have a role in enforcement; the enforcement is carried out by the local authority. There is no scenario that I can foresee whereby the powers set out in the Bill that have been working successfully since the Learning and Skills Act 2000 came into force would be used in the context of enforcement.

David Laws: But is not one of the potential scenarios a situation where a young person who is supposed to be in education or training has disappeared: they have left the home that they were in and there is reason to believe that they may be known to the police? In that situation, would it not be reasonable for a local authority to approach the police to ask whether they were aware of that particular young person so that it could take enforcement action?

Jim Knight: I think that it is more likely that the police, if they are dealing with a young person and they discover that they are not participating, may contact the local authority so that support procedures can be established. In that way, the Connexions personal adviser would know about it. If the young person was not on the records of that local authority, a conversation mighty take place between the personal adviser and the constable or the PCSO along the lines of: “We do not have a record of this person—they must have come from somewhere else. Do you know where they might have come from?” All of this is geared to support—I know that I keep saying that and that it may try the patience of the Committee—not enforcement.

John Hayes: Before the Minister moves on, this is an important point, because the Bill explicitly empowers local authorities to collect information in relation to duties prescribed in the Bill, including duties to encourage and enforce participation. The Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton pointed out, quite clearly empowers local authorities to act specifically in the way that the Minister is now suggesting that they are not going to act. Why not amend the Bill to reduce, limit or at least dilute those responsibilities and powers?

Jim Knight: As I have tried to explain, if we were to dilute them as set out in the amendment, we would not be able to have any of the data sharing that is extremely helpful in providing support to young people. The duty is not to enforce; it is to support the young person in fulfilling their duty. There is a power to enforce, but there is not a duty to enforce; it is important that the Committee bear in mind that difference. As we discussed earlier, it is easy for people to forget that there can be no enforcement without that support being put in place and without an attempt to provide appropriate support. If the matter goes to the attendance panel, and it finds that relevant support has not been offered, enforcement cannot take place.
Moving on to the health question which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton raised several interventions ago, health information can be particularly sensitive and the protection offered by the Data Protection Act in respect of health is particularly important. Under the principles of fairness in that Act, a young person must be informed if personal information relating to them is to be shared. They also have the right to ask to see the information that is held and to ask for it to be corrected if it is inaccurate.
There are circumstances where that can be helpful, most of them relating to teenage pregnancy and to new mothers. For example, I think that we debated on a previous Tuesday—I cannot remember the exact date—the case of teenage mothers and their need for additional support to enable them to participate. Some of that support may be health related, for example, if they are suffering from post-natal depression. The Connexions service may need access to information from health care providers so that it can assess the best way to re-engage a young person in education and training. Young people may have other mental health needs that are being addressed by the health authorities and which it is important that personal advisers know about so that they can tailor advice accordingly.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for his extreme patience and enthusiasm on the subject of this particular intervention. Under the Bill, will it remain an option for the health provider to decide not to supply that information if they consider that it is not appropriate, given, in particular, the use of “may” in subsection (1)?

Jim Knight: Given the use of the word “may” in subsection (1), public bodies are not bound to pass on the information. However, they may pass on the information.

John Hayes: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, he has been extremely generous in accepting interventions. On a parallel point, is this not an important departure from existing practice, as the Minister made it clear that people will have the right to access the information about them that is being passed on? Passing someone’s health records on to another agency currently requires their consent. No consent will be necessary in this case—is that not right?

Jim Knight: This is not a departure, because the provisions, as I have repeatedly said, replicate the provisions in section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. Clause 62, for example, replicates the relevant provisions. When I answered the question asked by the hon. Member for Yeovil about whether these matters are new, I think I explicitly said that for 13 to 19-year-olds such provisions already exist. This is not a new departure: it just repeats what is already in legislation, but it changes the arrangements because of the transfer to local authorities of the Connexions service.
The proportionality test for the provisions is already met by the requirement to comply with the European convention on human rights. As I have said, records are not being transferred, as information is generally shared verbally, on a case-by-case basis.

Nick Gibb: The Minister need not look so exasperated. This is a crucial clause and I do not think that he is selling his argument well. He needs to try harder, because it seems to me that he is looking at these clauses as though they were law and order provisions.
If a young person is engaged with the local authority, then that young person will volunteer the information about the problems they are having with the police or probation service. He or she will volunteer the problems they are having with their health. However, the Minister is assuming that the young people in question are not engaged, otherwise the information would not need to be passed behind their backs. If they are not engaged, then the swilling around of all this information will be irrelevant, and that has a sinister air to it; that this information about those people—unbeknownst to those people—will be swishing around from authority to authority, from state body to state body.

John Bercow: Order. I think the Minister has got the drift of it.

Jim Knight: I completely reject what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and we might just have to agree to disagree. I see no sinister swilling around in the way that Connexions operates under the existing powers framed in the Learning and Skills Act 2000.
I think it is appropriate for people who are trying to provide the best possible tailored advice for young people to have access to reasonable amounts of information. That is something that we learned about safeguarding following the Victoria ClimbiÃ(c) tragedy—something that is obviously being addressed in terms of safeguarding and sharing data on children—and I think that it can apply equally to ensuring that our most vulnerable young people, with the most complex difficulties, have professionals who are aware of the complexity of those difficulties and can intervene to support them adequately.

Nick Gibb: And will those young people know that specific information about their health records has been transferred?

Jim Knight: Yes, they have the protections that are afforded them under the Data Protection Act 1998, which I have set out for the Committee. I would argue—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would disagree—that the amendments are unnecessary. I ask him to withdraw the amendment, but again I am not optimistic.

David Laws: Welcome back to the Chair for this afternoon’s proceedings, Mr. Bercow. I thank the Minister for being patient and taking a lot of interventions on an extremely important clause. Judging by his answers, we have established that his view is that the powers already exist for the 13-to-19 cohort, but presumably they are used far more sparingly than may be the case if the Bill is enacted. In addition, in the present situation there is a very modest opt-out, which is covered by the Data Protection Act.
The Bill potentially extends the range of occasions on which certain information may be passed between the bodies that are set out in subsection (2) of the clause and a local authority. The major effect that the Minister says is likely to result from the clause, other than recognition of the transfer of responsibility from Connexions to a local authority, is that a much larger number of young people will come under the provisions that allow such information to be accessed.

Jim Knight: I am reflecting on what the hon. Gentleman said, and I am grateful to him for giving way. I question why he thinks there would be a great expansion. Support is available to 12 to 19-year-olds, and we have personal advisers working to engage those young people who are not in education, employment or training. We are already using these powers. We obviously want the advisers to have an improved range of provisions so that they can refer people and engage them better; but in respect of the data sharing, I am not completely persuaded by the hon. Gentleman’s argument that it will expand a great deal.

David Laws: I am interested in the Minister’s point, and I may be getting it wrong, but my instinct is that the measure is likely to lead to greater data transfer. Does the Minister have any evidence of the extent to which the existing powers are used? I asked him earlier—he kindly responded—whether powers of that type were used routinely for young people under the age of 16 who might have an absenteeism or truancy problem in the school setting. I am not persuaded, through my limited knowledge of the matter, that the powers would be used routinely in such a setting, but I would expect the process of compulsion for 16 and 17-year-olds to lead to greater data transfer, and we are concerned about that.
We have other specific concerns about those significant powers. One relates to the role of the police. The Minister said a moment ago that it is all geared around support, but when he was pressed on the subject, it turned out that that appears to be his intention. I see nothing in the Bill to prevent those powers being used for an enforcement purpose. If, perhaps later in Parliament’s scrutiny of the legislation, the Minister were willing to accept an amendment to subsection (1)—for example to insert “support” before “functions”, to make it clear that the provision is to be used only for support purposes—it might clarify the matter.
I was not persuaded by our exchanges on the potential role of the police. The Minister was rather ungenerous to local government officers, some of whom he described as jobsworths—I am not going for the local government vote in saying that—as they will have to deal with the enforcement provisions.

Jim Knight: To clarify matters, I think that I said that I did not think that there would be such jobsworths.

David Laws: We shall have to check the record; I am not sure that that was what the Minister said. The impression that I gained was that he felt that it would be unreasonable of anyone in local government to seek to use those powers to ask a police officer or superintendent for information that might be used for enforcement purposes. However, I do not find that an unlikely scenario, for reasons that I put to the Minister earlier.
I can easily envisage there being a number of young people who may not want to be in education or training, or anything else that the Minister might have in mind, who do not have a permanent and stable residence. They may be in the habit of going to the homes of various relatives or friends. They may be even more inclined to do that when they discover that legislation has been passed to cover such a situation. Some individuals trying to flout the regulations may be known to the police. I would have thought that any local government officer who took his or her responsibilities seriously and who was as passionate as the Minister is about having all those young people in education and training on a compulsory basis, might decide that if a young person who was clearly not compliant and was known to be unwilling to comply with the Bill’s provisions, it would be sensible to ask the local chief superintendent if he knew where Mr. X, Mr. Y or Miss Z was, because they were not turning up to their college, school or learning setting. Perhaps it would be likely that the police have some awareness of where that individual is, particularly if they are in the habit of committing low or even high-level offences.
I do not think that it is at all unreasonable to think that the powers may be used for enforcement purposes. Whether they should be so used is a separate debate. If the purpose of the clause is to enable a support function, it would be useful to have that in the Bill, rather than have the Minister giving us his interpretation of the measure. Perhaps he will go so far as to make it clear that that is the only purpose for which the provisions can be used.
We are in a strange position, notwithstanding the alleged protections afforded by data protection legislation, regarding the opt-outs that apply to different clauses in the Bill—the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings raised that issue. As I understand it, there will be a power for the parent of a young person who is under 16 or over 16 to deny the local authority even routine information about their educational success, achievements and background in a school setting. Even when such information is routine and even if it is publicly available, there will be a power to opt out, although it might not be a satisfactory power. Yet, apparently, information held by a primary care trust or strategic health authority, or by the police, which is potentially far more sensitive, could be handed over without an opt-out mechanism of sufficient force in place.
For example, we could end up with a situation in which a young person afforded protection in respect of a piece of information held by a school would not be afforded the same protection if the information was held by a primary trust. Information about a sensitive issue such as child abuse, for example, might be held by a GP and also by a school. I wonder whether that is satisfactory.

John Bercow: Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, and I do not want to distract him from the development of his argument, but it came to my attention earlier that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings had in his possession a book titled “The Specious Origins of Liberalism”. I can now see the front cover of the offending tome. I say in all courtesy to the hon. Gentleman that he should not be reading the book, even chapter 11, entitled “The Divine Right of Majorities”—it is not appropriate reading matter for the Committee. The hon. Gentleman, who is ordinarily an immensely courteous man, is being inadvertently discourteous, both to the hon. Member for Yeovil and to other members of the Committee.

John Hayes: On a point of order, Mr. Bercow. I was looking at a particular aspect of the book regarding the issue of compulsion and consent, which we have been debating today. It was from that that my reading stemmed.

John Bercow: It was a nice try.

David Laws: I am grateful, Mr. Bercow, for your guidance to the Committee. I am reassured that any critical volume on liberalism is likely to be a short piece of work, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is coming to the end of his reading in any case.
I am concerned that there is a mismatch between the force of the opt-out available for information held by a school, whereby even routine educational information cannot be provided to a local authority, and the extraordinary powers that are available under the measure that we are debating. I note with interest the possibility that totally different judgments could be made about sensitive information by different providers. The Minister confirmed in response to an intervention I made earlier that subsection (1) gives the listed providers the ability or power to release such sensitive information; it does not impose an obligation. Therefore, it is inevitable that different primary care trusts, for example, throughout the country, would take different views on what is relevant to a local authority in discharging its responsibilities. They would probably be right to do so, because as our earlier debates highlighted it is unclear what information would be considered relevant and what would not.
I think that we would find very different information would be released about many young people, depending on whether their GP was inclined to take a wide or narrow view of the responsibilities and powers in the Bill; or perhaps on whether they thought that it was none of the local authority’s business, in which case they would be empowered under the proposal simply to shove the letter in the bin. That confusion about their responsibilities and the mismatch in powers in relation to consent are two unsatisfactory aspects of what is already an unsatisfactory clause.
I am afraid that I am not so far particularly persuaded by the Minister’s arguments, but I await with interest an indication from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton as to whether he intends to press his amendments.

Nick Gibb: I am concerned about the clause and therefore keen for the amendments to be adopted by the Committee. The Minister has based his whole argument on the fact that the clauses are lifted from the Learning and Skills Act. I think that that is part of the problem. It would explain the inconsistency between these information-sharing provisions and those that relate to education information, which have presumably been drafted specifically for the Bill.
The Minister has based his arguments on the fact that the measure is merely providing useful information for a limited support provision service, but that is not what it says in the Bill. It may well be his intention, and it will be interesting to see the guidance when it is published, but we are here to scrutinise the Bill, which states clearly in clause 16(1) that the information is to enable the local authority
“to exercise its functions under this Part.”
Part 1 of the Bill comprises clauses 1 to 53. Those clauses include all the enforcement provisions of the Bill, such as the parenting contract, the parenting order, written and attendance notices, and financial penalties. Therefore, the bodies listed in clause 16(2)(a) to (g) will be able to supply information to a local authority for the purpose of enforcing participation. Given that that is repeated in clause 62, relating specifically to support services, it is clear that the intention of the draftsmen, if not of the Minister, was that the provisions would be used to enable a local authority to help it to enforce participation. Therein lies our concern.
Also, even if the purpose of the measure were only to help a body to provide careers guidance services, I do not understand why the organisations concerned would need to provide details of a 16-year-old girl’s medical record, such as whether she has had an abortion, or of whether a young man has had a sexually transmitted disease. I do not see why that information should not remain confidential for those young people. It may well have an impact on whether that young woman can pursue a career or training but, none the less, the information is confidential and should remain so.

Jim Knight: I am probably wasting my breath but I will stress that it is not whole records that are being transferred. Only that information that will assist in exercising the statutory function would be shared.

Nick Gibb: But it may well be that some individual in those local authorities may regard the fact that a girl has had a baby, or has had mental health problems, as pertinent to whether she should be engaged in education or training. Such information is confidential and should remain so. It should not be spread around a local area simply in order for Connexions, the careers advisory service, to perform its function better. That is an important point of principle.
The Minister says that information will be transferred from the law enforcement body to Connexions under the law and order provision. Again, if the young person is engaged with Connexions, they will give voluntarily all the pertinent information about their circumstances—they will explain that they cannot attend a particular training course because of an attendance requirement under a probation order. If they are not engaged, all this information is irrelevant unless it is being used to enforce participation, because the young person will not be turning up to interviews. All the information about the young person’s medical records, police record and the suspicions that the police have about them will be completely irrelevant if the young person is not engaged with Connexions and does not want to pursue a career and training.

John Hayes: My hon. Friend is making a persuasive case. The lifeline that we threw to the Minister, which he might have grasped, is the one to which my hon. Friend alludes—consent. Consent is the critical point that would check these powers. Does my hon. Friend understand why the Minister will not grasp that lifeline but simply wants more water thrown over him instead?

Nick Gibb: I just think that not enough thought has been put into the drafting of the Bill. The Minister started his response by saying that if this provision is not passed, a greater number of people will become NEET, but that is the old argument of the end justifying the means. He can make that argument about the most draconian measure in any Bill. If the overall objective is x, he can always say that that is the purpose of a draconian measure. It is wrong always to rely on the Data Protection Act for these protections, because that Act is designed to protect the individual from the overweening, overarching power of the state. It is not there as the principal measure; it is there to protect us from the state when it is abusing its power. The Bill itself should contain the protections; it should not purport to want to supply information without the consent of the young person. No provision in clause 16 says that the person will be informed that the information has been supplied or that the young person has to give consent. Always the Minister refers to the Data Protection Act, which is there to protect people from private companies, private individuals and state bodies that are using information in a way that does not protect the privacy of individuals.

Jim Knight: I hear the hon. Gentleman saying that the Data Protection Act protects individuals from the overweening power of the state. Is that not exactly what he is worried about and what he has been arguing in respect of the clauses? I am saying that there are protections for those individuals in the Data Protection Act. He has just said that that Act is there precisely to provide those protections, so what is wrong with that?

Nick Gibb: Because the Minister should not be trying to do things under the Bill that the Data Protection Act will catch him out on and prevent him from doing. The Bill should not be seeking to do things that the House has said on other occasions are unacceptable. People may well ignore those other provisions and just rely on what is in this measure. If people are not even informed that information is being supplied about them behind their backs, they will not even know that they have a data protection problem—that there are data that need protecting. The Minister should not be seeking to do things that on the face of it contravene the principles and spirit of the Data Protection Act, but the Bill, because of the way it is drafted, does just that.

Jim Knight: We are not seeking to do anything that goes against the principles of the Data Protection Act. That Act will govern the behaviour of the public bodies listed in the clause and affect their behaviour in the same way that we hope other clauses in the Bill will affect other people’s behaviour. We are not setting something up to conflict with another Act. That is just palpable nonsense.

Nick Gibb: The way the Bill is worded at the moment means that it does. I will not repeat the debate that we had on clause 14(4), but the fact that there is a provision that says that people have to opt out of the information being supplied is a contradiction of the active consent required by the Data Protection Act. This provision does not even have that protection in it. Therein lies the concern: either the drafting is sloppy or there is an intention that the information will be supplied on a de facto basis—as an everyday practicality of life, the information will just be supplied. No one will know that it has been supplied, but it will be supplied.
I leave the Committee with this thought from the Children’s Rights Alliance. It is very concerned, as a result of a survey that it did of young people, that if children think that adults are going to share information with other people, they will stop confiding in adults altogether. That is the point. When people go to the doctor, they assume that the information that they give is confidential, even if it pertains to their possible employability or ability to engage in training. I believe that it should remain confidential, regardless of how important the Minister believes the ends that this Bill seeks to achieve are.

John Bercow: It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman would indicate whether he wishes to press his amendment to a Division.

Nick Gibb: I do intend to press amendment No. 23 to a Division, Mr. Bercow.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 25, in clause 16, page 8, line 44, at end insert—
‘( ) Information may only be supplied under subsection (1) if the person to whom the information relates has given written consent that such information can be supplied.’.

John Bercow: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 26, in clause 16, page 9, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2A) Any person about whom information is supplied under subsection (1) shall have the right to examine any relevant information requested by a local authority from a responsible person or body before that information is provided to the authority.’.
No. 27, in clause 16, page 9, line 7, at end insert—
‘(3A) Any person about whom information is supplied under subsection (1) shall be given the opportunity to correct information regarded by him as inaccurate, subject to the agreement of the relevant person or body supplying the information.
(3B) For the purpose of subsection (3A), when agreement cannot be reached on any correction to the information, the Information Commissioner shall decide what correction, if any, should be made to the relevant information.’.
No. 112, in clause 62, page 34, line 5, at end insert—
‘(1A) Information may only be supplied under subsection (1) if the person to whom the information relates has given written consent that such information can be supplied.’.
No. 110, in clause 62, page 34, line 13, at end insert—
‘(2A) Any person to whom subsection (1) applies shall be given the opportunity to correct any information regarded by him as inaccurate subject to the agreement of the persons or bodies referred to in subsection (2).
(2B) For the purpose of subsection (2A), when agreement cannot be reached on any correction to the information, the Information Commissioner shall decide what correction, if any, should be made to the information.’.
No. 111, in clause 62, page 34, line 13, at end insert—
‘(2A) A person about whom information is supplied under subsection (1) shall have the right to examine any relevant information requested before that information is provided.’.

Nick Gibb: These amendments cover the issue of written consent and the rights of the young person to examine the information held on them and to correct any inaccuracies. A wide range of information can be shared, including information about a young person’s activities at school held by a local authority, information about a young person’s activities at college held by the learning and skills council, information about a young person’s health held by a primary care trust or strategic health authority, and information about a young person’s involvement with the police, the probation service or the youth offending team. It is astonishing that despite that huge volume of highly sensitive personal information that can be shared, there is no similar protection to that afforded by clause 14(4), limited though that protection is.
Amendments Nos. 25 and 112 propose that information can only be supplied by any of the bodies listed in subsection (2) if a young person has given written consent. It is very important that the information that we give to doctors, police or local authorities is given for one purpose and that, on the assumption that it is confidential, it is only used for the purpose for which it is given. If that principle is not adhered to, we will find that people will not disclose personal details for fear of that information appearing in another arena and damaging them. I am now reluctant to give my mobile phone number to businesses when they ask for it because I know that they may use it to make marketing calls.
The Bill appears to take an insouciant approach to the protection of personal and sensitive information. It ignores one of the principles set out in schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act, which is that the individual gives consent for their personal data to be processed. There are exceptions to this principle, but for sensitive personal data, such as information on health or criminal convictions, there are more stringent conditions before the principle of consent can be overruled.

Angela Watkinson: Does it concern my hon. Friend that there is nothing in this Bill that places a duty on any authority to make young people aware that they have the right to opt out? It is not a question of having necessarily to give written permission, but a young person has the right to require that their information is not passed on. However, there is no duty on authorities or organisations to make them aware of that fact.

Nick Gibb: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important point and hope that we will be able to return to that principle, perhaps not in Committee, but on Report, because people need to be informed that they have that right. The trouble is that, in this complex and busy country in which we live, those things can go unnoticed, and that is how people’s rights become infringed and their privacy invaded.
The Bill also does not require that the conduct of the various statutory bodies should be subject to oversight by the Information Commissioner. I genuinely believe that the Government have, in drafting the clauses, taken a cavalier approach to the protection of privacy and sensitive information.
Amendments Nos. 26 and 111 would insert a young person’s right to examine the information held on him or her that has been requested before it is supplied to the local authority. Apart from in the case of ongoing criminal investigations, that is and should remain a sacrosanct principle relating to information held on an individual by a statutory body. Whether that information is health records, test scores at school or college or a criminal record, an individual should have the right to see it.
The idea that statutory bodies never make mistakes and that it is therefore unnecessary to check it for accuracy is risible. The Royal Mail has just written to people in Bognor Regis in my constituency to tell them why they propose to close a third of the Post Office branches in Bangor Regis. I am sure that the executives of the Post Office would have had a lovely day, the day they went to Bangor, but they would face a hostile reaction if they came to Bognor Regis to defend their policy. Amendments Nos. 27 and 110 would give the young person the right to correct any inaccurate information held on the various databases about themselves, and if there is a dispute with a statutory body on whether that information is correct, the matter should be referred to the Information Commissioner for resolution.
There seems to be a degree of inconsistency between the clauses’ approach to personal information. There is also, across all of the clauses that deal with information sharing, an alarming indifference to the individual’s right to privacy. The Government’s approach appears to be that they are entitled to do all that they wish with the information in pursuit of the greater aim of greater participation, but as I mentioned in relation to the last group of amendments, the dogma of ends justifying the means is, as always, a dangerous one, which I hope the Government will temper by accepting these amendments this afternoon.

Oliver Heald: I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm that clause 16 will not be used so that all of the information held by the bodies set out in subsection (2)(a) to (g) on everyone affected by part 1 can be transferred to the local authority to create a sort of Big Brother database.

Jim Knight: I am happy to confirm that.

Oliver Heald: The second part of my question was whether the Minister can confirm that it will be an individual exercise in each case when information is sought about Fred Bloggs or whoever, and that it will not be a mass operation, even if it is done on guidelines.

Jim Knight: I am trying to be efficient and can confirm all of that. As I have said before, in the normal course of events there would be a case meeting regarding an individual, where various professionals would come together and share information.

Oliver Heald: Thank you.

Jim Knight: In relation to clauses 14, 57, 15 and 61, we have debated safeguards provided by the Data Protection Act 1998 on the disclosure of information by public bodies. In essence, there is a considerable disagreement between Government Members and Opposition Members about whether we should write all of the protections that are afforded by the 1998 Act on to the face of the Bill. I think that it should be a principle not to duplicate law. The Bill, when enacted, would and should be read with the 1998 Act and it will be clear that the 1998 Act applies.
I shall recap the principles: all public bodies are required to inform an individual if personal data relating to him or her is shared; individuals have the right to request a copy of the personal information that they believe an organisation holds on them, and; if they believe that that information is inaccurate, they can write to the organisation to set out what they believe is wrong with it and what should be done to correct it. The Information Commissioner already has powers under the Data Protection Act of the sort envisaged by amendments Nos. 27 and 110.
For the sake of clarity, I will remind the Committee of our discussion this morning. I know that some aspects of that debate were confusing, particularly on clause 14 in respect of information provided by schools. I will very briefly set out those matters. For basic identification information, no consent is required or obtained in practice. That data transfer covers all young people on the provider’s roll in year 8. For additional information, consent is presumed, so it is passed on for all young people, except for those who request that it not be passed on.
The presumed consent is ongoing, but parents are notified annually that information about their child may be passed on. That can be done through a letter or through the school’s website. On those occasions, they are also notified of their right to opt out. It is also worth clarifying that very broadly, the Data Protection Act provides the conditions that need to be satisfied before personal data can be disclosed. There are additional conditions that need to be satisfied in the case of sensitive personal data, such as information about racial or ethnic origins and physical or mental health.
One such condition is that the disclosure is necessary for the exercise of statutory functions. The educational institutions referred to in clauses 14 and 57 are under a statutory duty to provide information when requested to do so because the condition for disclosure is satisfied without obtaining consent. That informs why we need the opt-out in clause 14(4), so that there is an additional safeguard on top of the Data Protection Act because that effectively allows an exemption for disclosure. That is a recap of where we got to today. In particular, the Committee should reflect on the protections that I have summarised from the Data Protection Act.
In the light of existing provisions, it is clear that the amendments are at best unnecessary. Amendments Nos. 25 and 112 would insert a requirement to give consent before any supply of information. As with other cases that we have discussed, that would slow the system down and place additional bureaucratic burdens on local authorities and other public bodies. Amendments Nos. 26 and 111 would have a similar effect by giving young people a specific right to examine any personal information before it is passed on. That delay could be exacerbated if a young person was somehow prevented from examining or was not able to examine their information before it was provided. As I have emphasised, any delay in getting potentially vital information to the Connexions service could prevent it from providing timely, targeted and personalised support of the kind necessary to engage young people in education or training.
We have already discussed the purpose of public bodies such as those listed in clauses 16 and 62 being able to share information with Connexions. It is the most vulnerable young people who will need Connexions support the most and it is they who are most likely to benefit from this information sharing. The amendments could prevent that from happening effectively. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb: There is something contradictory about the way that the Minister rattled through that response to the amendments. On the one hand, he says that they are unnecessary because all of the protections contained in the amendments are contained in the Data Protection Act, which will apply to the Bill. He cites the requirement to check the information and amend inaccuracies and that it requires there to be consent. At the same time, he says that to accept the amendments would slow down the system and would create a bureaucratic burden on the overall wonderful aim of raising participation in education and training. He cannot have it both ways. Either these protections are already in the law, in which case they will already be bureaucratic and burdensome and delay the process, or they are not. There is nothing different in the way that the amendments are drafted from the principles laid down in the Data Protection Act.
Leaving that argument aside, I also think that the principles of the Data Protection Act should be incorporated into the Bill for clarity. We are trying to make the law clear. Those working in a local authority or one of the other statutory bodies should not have to have one Act on one knee and one on the other to work out what they should be doing. In a private sector company where there are internal rules and regulations and procedures for how the company conducts itself, there will be rules that tell the employees that when data are submitted, these are the things to be done to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. The company does not tell its employees, “Here is the data. Do what you like with it. By the way, you are meant to comply with the Data Protection Act so make sure you stick a copy of that up on your noticeboard.” The company itself will have rules and regulations. The Bill constitutes the rules and regulations of these statutory bodies and of the Department. These rules and regulations should contain the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. The Government are playing fast and loose with a very important part of their duty to protect the privacy of people in this country.
I am very disappointed again by the Minister’s response and will press the amendment to a division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 28, in clause 16, page 8, line 44, at end insert—
‘( ) The provisions of section 15(4), (5), (6) and (7) shall apply to any person to whom information is supplied under subsection (1).’.

John Bercow: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 109, in clause 62, page 34, line 5, at end insert—
‘(1A) The provisions of section 61(4), (5), (6) and (7) shall apply to any person to whom information is supplied under subsection (1).’.

John Hayes: I move seamlessly from diligent study of the specious origins of liberalism to studious consideration of the specious arguments used by the Minister in defence of this clause.
The simple amendment before us is designed merely to create consistency in respect of those penalties that would apply to people disclosing information inappropriately. Clause 15 sets out the six conditions under which information can be disclosed or transmitted. We simply seek for those conditions to apply in clause 16 and for the penalties which relate to disclosure which does not fit within that framework to apply as well. With that very short and I hope straightforward argument, I have little doubt that I will convince the whole Committee of the efficacy of the amendments in my name and those of my hon. Friends.

Jim Knight: I strongly encourage the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendments once he has heard the compelling case that I am about to make.
The measures in respect of clauses 15 and 61 relate specifically to information, including social security information. We felt it was important to be consistent in respect to other disclosures of social security information in respect of penalties, but we do not feel that we should therefore bring up the enforcement penalties for everything else to the same standard as is consistent with social security information. We should make those harsher penalties consistent with the other disclosure of social security information. That is all we are seeking to do in these clauses.

John Hayes: That is revealing and interesting. What kinds of disclosure would the Minister deem of less significance and, therefore, warranting lesser penalty, given that we have been speaking today about information that might be provided by the police or via other local government departments or other local authorities?

Jim Knight: I was seeking to be brief but perhaps that is not a privilege that I can be afforded. Clearly, those disclosures of information by public bodies under clauses 16 and 62 would be subject, as things stand, to the penalties that are set out in the Data Protection Act 1998. We think that it is appropriate that the penalties should lie at that base level. If it was not for the problem of inconsistency, we would have been happy for social security information to be at that level, but we think that it is important that there should not be any differentiation in law, according to where the information has come from, around the penalties attached to disclosure of social security information. We are simply seeking to be consistent in that regard.

Nick Gibb: I do not understand this either. It is a criminal offence to disclose information that clause 15 relates to, which in fact is somebody’s name, address and date of birth, or the name and address of their parents, but it is not a criminal offence to disclose wrongly people’s health records, police records, criminal records or education records. I do not understand why wrongful disclosure of name and address is a criminal offence and the disclosure of very sensitive information such as health records, is not.

Jim Knight: It is an offence for someone who is employed or has been employed in social security administration to disclose personal information without lawful authority; that is set out in section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. A corresponding offence provision was thought necessary where the information has been supplied to someone not covered by the offence in social security legislation. That is to maintain the same level of protection for that information irrespective of who holds it.
Disclosure of personal information otherwise than in accordance with the provision of the Data Protection Act 1998 might still constitute a criminal offence, under section 55(1) of that Act. Prosecutions for this offence must be commenced by the Information Commissioner or by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The offence is triable either way and the maximum penalty is a fine limited only by the jurisdiction of the trying court.
On the basis of trying, I hope that that is sufficient for the Committee and I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

John Hayes: I am not entirely satisfied, because it seems that the Minister was arguing—he may want to come back again on this point—that what the Bill does in respect of clause 15 is to create consistency with other legislation relating to the disclosure of social security information. On the other hand, what our amendment suggests is that the Bill itself must be consistent; there must be consistency across the provisions of the Bill. That is because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton implied in his pithy intervention, the type of data that is transmitted between institutions that might have a responsibility for young people’s welfare or guidance might disclose information that is as sensitive and as potentially damaging as social security information. In our earlier considerations, we heard that that information might come, for example, from the police. It would certainly include sensitive health information and it might include information from a range of other agencies dealing with highly personal data. I am not sure that the Minister’s case that the clause is designed to create consistency with other legislation relating to social security but that it is not so important to have consistency across the Bill in terms of the disclosure of information is entirely convincing.
Mr. Bercow, I do not imagine that you will allow a long stand part debate on this clause, as we have already examined it in some detail. Therefore I must say now that, if the Minister had come to the Committee today in a rather different mood and with a rather different manner and argued that collection and exchange of this information was central to the purpose of the Bill as defined at its beginning, although we may have disagreed with him, we would have regarded him as sensible. What he has actually done is to come to the Committee with an argument that is neither right nor sensible, and we have heard it time and time again as we have debated different aspects of different clauses.
I make that remark without malice, but simply to say that we need an open debate about why this information is being gathered and exchanged. It may be that the Minister makes a plausible case and that the gathering and exchange of that information is essential as part of the principal thrust of the Bill. However, I am not sure that we have heard that case put today. I think that we have had smoke and mirrors, and I do not think that that does this Committee or indeed this Bill any service.
I do not know if the Minister wants to come back again on this point, but unless he does so I am inclined to press this matter to a Division, in the spirit that my hon. Friend and others on the Committee have done so, purely and importantly to highlight what we feel is a significant weakness in this proposed legislation and in the Government’s argument.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

David Laws: I beg to move amendment No. 60, in clause 16, page 9, leave out lines 3 and 4.
This amendment is our last chance to have a bite at clause 16 and at two of the groups that are set out in subsection (2) that can release information to a local authority. The amendment deletes the primary care trust and the strategic health authority from that list. It is essentially a probing amendment to allow me to ask the Minister a number of questions that relate specifically to bodies that have health responsibilities. I have six questions for the Minister and if I get six answers I shall be doing well, but I certainly will not need to press this to a Division.
First, the clause gives someone in a local authority the ability to secure the information from the bodies named in paragraphs (a) to (g), including the two health bodies. Are there any protections in relation to the local authority staff who will be able to access this information? In other words, because a lot of this is particularly confidential information, will there be some process of scrutiny within a local authority about who should be able to access this information? Will there be some way for those who are asked to be sure that this is being sought on an appropriate basis and with appropriate safeguards?
Secondly, the health bodies named here are the primary care trust and the strategic health authority. I am not sure what information the strategic health authority would hold on an individual of the type that we are dealing with in the Bill. I should be grateful if the Minister could say something about that. Will the duty be on the primary care trust to access the information through GPs or are we to take it that the primary care trust in paragraph (c) is essentially the proxy body for all the GP practices in the area? Would the access be directly to the GP?
As part of that long second question, would the Bill automatically include—I assume that this would be the intention—other health bodies that might be partnerships of some of the constituent parts of subsection (2)? For example, the drug and alcohol service in Somerset is run by Somerset Drugs Service, which is accountable to a drug action team and is a multi-agency body. I assume that that organisation and, for that matter, the Somerset Partnership, which is the mental health body covering Somerset and is a partnership of social services and the national health service, would also be required to give information under the clause.
How will this information be requested? Will it be necessary for the individual in the local authority to go to the GP, the primary care trust or the strategic health authority, if that ever happens, which seems unlikely, and say, “We are concerned about this individual and their medical or mental health problem of this type. Could we have information on this discrete issue?”? Or could the local authority go on a fishing expedition, saying to the PCT, “We are very concerned about this person. He is not compliant with the Bill and is not in education or training. Give us all you’ve got on his medical background and any other information that you think might be relevant.”? It is important to know whether the local authority should seek something specific or whether it could go on a fishing expedition. That might also determine what information they end up with, and how widely ranged it is.
Will the Minister say what conditions might meet the relevancy criteria? GPs and PCTs keep a huge amount of information on people’s health circumstances. Much of it will be extremely sensitive and some might be directly relevant to people’s ability to discharge their responsibilities under the Bill.
For example, would a GP be required to give information on pregnancy, especially for someone who was so much in the early stages of pregnancy that individuals close to her might not have been informed about it? I presume that mental health problems would be covered, but how serious would they need to be? Would someone being treated for drug or alcohol addiction automatically be included? If the condition was not so serious as to constitute an addiction but was in the early stages of addictive behaviour, would that count? Would the sexual abuse of another person count? Would a sexually related disease count? Would being HIV-positive count? Would a host of personal health problems that might impact on a person’s ability to be in stable employment or educational environmental count? Will guidance be given to local authorities and those who need to consider whether the information is relevant as to what type of health conditions ought to be considered relevant?
We are now on question five, Mr. Bercow, in case you have lost count. It is a power granted to those bodies to give up information; it is not that they must do so.

Jim Knight: It is not that they are required to give it, as I said earlier.

David Laws: They have the option to give that information. I cannot remember what I said earlier, Mr. Bercow; it is difficult to believe that so much time has passed.
Some entities may decide not to take up the offer to provide information. For instance, health-related bodies are more prone to stick up two fingers metaphorically at the Bill’s provisions than many others. They often resent having to give information that involves a bureaucratic burden and expense. They routinely charge for answering requests for health-related information. A primary care trust may say, “We’re terribly sorry but we’re not going to waste our time doing that unless you pay”, or even, “We are not going to waste our time doing this because far too many burdens have been imposed on us by the Government.” Will the Government do anything about it? Will it be acceptable for a PCT to decide for itself to ignore the provisions of the Bill, effectively allowing its GPs to opt out as a group, or, returning to the earlier question, is it likely that the local authority would directly seek the information from a GP?
My final question has been touched upon time and again by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. How will the consent work in practical terms? We know that the Minister thinks that protection comes under the Data Protection Act 1998. If a highly vulnerable young person has some of the conditions that I mentioned earlier, the local authority may be worried that it will get in the way of that person complying with the duties under the Bill—or that person may not have taken up the duty, and the local authority is considering what support mechanisms need to be put in place. If the PCT or the GP phones up and says, “Give us all the information on this guy. We know he’s got mental health problems and drug addictions and a whole series of other issues”, how in practice will the GP or PCT seek the approval of the person in question? Over what time period will a request need to be dealt with? Does it have to be the GP or PCT that seeks the information? Would it have to be in writing? Is there a period of time in which a person can reconsider their option to give the information?
The ability of an individual to opt out or opt in seems to be extraordinarily weak. In practice, many of the individuals involved could be vulnerable, and they may not realise that their data are protected unless they are explicitly told otherwise. They might feel under pressure when they are contacted by people to give information and, in certain circumstances, they might not even understand what is being asked of them. I would like to know more about how in practice consent will be sought from an ordinary individual in those ordinary circumstances, to know whether the protection to which the Minister keeps referring will be effective, or whether, as some Opposition Members fear, it will be a protection on paper that is not effective in practice.

John Hayes: May I support the hon. Gentleman briefly on the amendment? There is a need for greater clarity on what the Government envisage as a result of the legislation. I take the view that, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, such information is of a personal nature and that it is by convention held in trust by health authorities of one sort or another, on the understanding that it will be disclosed only with the explicit consent of the individual. It may be of even more profound concern to people who have mental or sexual health difficulties, or acute medical problems that affect their lifestyle and opportunities. It should only be exchanged when absolutely necessary and also, in my judgment, with the consent of the individual.
The hon. Gentleman was right to ask those probing questions. Does the Minister assume that the information will be requested routinely or exceptionally as a result of the Bill? Does he anticipate the systems that are in place in health authorities will be sufficiently compatible with those on which the Bill is framed—the Connexions service database—to facilitate the easy exchange and transmission of information? What protocol will exist for accessing the data? In other words, will it be accessed through GPs or health authorities per se? Those questions and others will be running through the minds of those concerned about the sensitivity of the data. We have not really heard enough about the matter to be confident that the Bill does not open a hornets’ nest regarding the possible exposure of sensitive information in a way that is not typical in this country but that is deeply offensive to many people, given how they feel about their medical records.

Jim Knight: In a discussion on an intervention at the beginning of the sitting, we discussed health-related matters, so many of the principles behind the amendment have been debated. However, the hon. Member for Yeovil hopes that I will answer his questions, which I will do as best as I can.
Incidentally, I shall repeat—I am given to wonder why—for the sake of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings in the hope that it will get through, that we are not opening a hornets’ nest, because the measures are already in place through the Learning and Skills Act 2000. He fears that a hornets’ nest is being opened, but it is already open and has been for some years. If you were going to be stung, Mr. Bercow, you would already have been stung by those hornets.
The first question that the hon. Member for Yeovil was whether local authority staff accessing the information would be scrutinised and what kind of confidentiality could we be assured about. Only those people involved in the provision of support to young people who are supported in participation will be able to access the information. Obviously, there are the offences in respect of the wrongful disclosure of the information that would then govern the way that the local authority used it for other people. It might be worth the Committee noting that those people responsible for enforcement would not be able to access this information. As I understand it, it is only those who are responsible for support.

David Laws: Where is that assurance in the Bill or elsewhere that this will only be for those people providing support rather than for enforcement? The Minister has made that point a number of times, but we want to know that it is a cast-iron, bankable guarantee.

Jim Knight: I will seek to come back on that if I need to in respect of the Bill. As I have set out before, the specification on the information system is significant in this regard. It is very clear in the specification. There may be something in respect of having to have regard to that specification somewhere in the legislation. If I can think of where it is, I will let the hon. Gentleman know. The specification is clear on the role-based security. The personal data can be accessed only by the appropriate person. The lead professionals’ code of conduct covers the proper use of data and that would have effect in this regard. I refer the hon. Gentleman to clause 55(2)(d) as the relevant part of the Bill that informs the use of the specification.
The second question was whether the duty was on the primary care trusts, and through the primary care trusts to the GPs, or whether we mean it to apply to individual GPs——could it automatically include partner health bodies? To help the Committee, I think that it is worth going back to how we see this working in practice. During our debates on the clause, I said that in practice, this provision will be used in case conferences. I referred to that in response to an intervention by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire. It would most likely be a representative of the primary care trust who would be present at that conference, but it could be a GP, and the provision would apply equally to those health professionals. It is worth emphasising that this is not a duty, but a power. The strategic health authority is included because child and adolescent mental health services generally operate at a strategic health authority level and would be covered through that route.

John Hayes: I do not want to open any more hornets’ nests for the Minister, but would the person be informed as and when their information was requested, however often that is? If so, in what way?

Jim Knight: I will come to that question when I respond to the sixth question of the hon. Member for Yeovil. It is helpful to answer questions in the order in which they are put.

David Laws: On question two, is the Minister saying in relation to these case conferences that the local authority could not exercise its powers under the Bill to simply write to a GP direct and ask them to provide that information in the form of a letter?

Jim Knight: I am not saying that. It would be possible under these measures for other communications to take place. It may be one-to-one telephone calls in which some information might be shared that would be governed by these clauses. In most cases multi-agency case conferences would discuss the individual needs of vulnerable people.
The third question that the hon. Member for Yeovil asked was how the information would be requested. Although he thought that his last intervention referred to question two, I would have interpreted it as referring to question three. Is it in respect of an individual or a whole body—was that the question?

David Laws: I do not think that I made question three clear enough. The question was, in respect of a single individual, could there be a fishing expedition about all their medical problems or would the query have to be specific?

Jim Knight: No, it could not be a fishing expedition. Specific information would need to be requested, and it would then be up to the public body whether to provide it. Fishing, in the context that we are discussing, and probably in respect of other matters, is not allowed under the Data Protection Act. In practice, we are talking about shared face-to-face disclosures of information.
Question four was about conditions for relevancy and whether matters such as sexually transmitted diseases, child abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, or drug and alcohol problems that do not constitute addiction would count. Obviously, we will be issuing guidance in association with clause 18, which will apply to the local education authority. We are not issuing guidance in respect of the other public bodies because it is up to them whether they supply information. That guidance will inform this question, but what is disclosed is up to the public body and depends on the young person’s circumstances. The early stages of pregnancy would not affect participation and it would not be relevant to disclose it. I cannot imagine circumstances in which sexually transmitted diseases would be relevant, although I do not necessarily rule it out. There may be such circumstances, but I do not know as I am not a health professional. If they are relevant, those things may be disclosed through this power.
The fifth question relates to the use of the word “may” in clause 16(1). If the public bodies decide not to disclose the information, can they ignore the provisions? Yes, if they judge the information to be irrelevant, they do not have to provide it. That is extremely clear.
Finally, question six addresses how the consent will work. Obviously, that also relates to the intervention of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. The young person does not have to give consent. The principles of fairness contained in the Data Protection Act mean that it is necessary to inform the young person if personal data relating to him or her is being shared, if notification is practicable.
The Act allows for sharing without consent between two public bodies where it is necessary in order for the recipient of the data to carry out its functions. However, data are shared only when it is in the interests of the young person, rather than in the interests of the public body. That is highly relevant in this respect and in that of the concerns consistently expressed by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings about the measure being used for enforcement. I hope that that answer helps him.

Oliver Heald: I am concerned that a risk of crime can be tackled. If someone was a drugs pusher and there was a need to try to educate them, but to keep a weather eye open and ensure that they were not corrupting other youngsters, would that not still be possible? Could information from the police or the health authority about that also be used for those purposes?

Jim Knight: We are talking about data sharing for the purpose of supporting the young person. A public interest justification for sharing data for other purposes may crop up during a one-to-one conversation or during a case conference, in respect of potential serious crime. However, it is important that we hang on to the principle that the measure is to support young people. If their criminal behaviour that was known to the police was significant in relation to designing the individual support to be provided, obviously that would be relevant and it could be disclosed.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one last time on the final issue of consent, because he rather rushed what he said. Could he take us more slowly through how, in practice, a young person whose GP has asked for personal health information will be notified and give approval for the information to be released? What will be the time period? Did the Minister say something about approval where practicable? I might have missed the phrase that he used, but I thought that I heard those words.

Jim Knight: I shall repeat something that I said earlier, then I shall add something and then, given that the hon. Gentleman said that that was his final intervention, I shall seek to sit down and the Committee’s view can be taken.
On the question of whether the young person can prevent their information from being shared, the principles of fairness in the Data Protection Act mean that, if personal data relating to the young person is shared and notification is practicable, it is necessary to inform them. The Act allows for sharing without consent between two public bodies where that is necessary for the recipient of the data to carry out its functions, and only where that is in the interests of the young person. Where an obligation of confidence applies, such as between a doctor and a patient, the information can be used without the individual’s permission only for the purpose for which it was provided. That is all part of the law on processing personal data. I hope that that helps the Committee.

John Hayes: A few moments ago the Minister said that data sharing was not a problem because it is already established practice. Now he tells us, in the form of guidance that has been gifted to him from the ether, that that is not the case, and that without the express permission of the young person the information can be used only for a very particular purpose. Our concerns have been exacerbated by the complacency on the part of the Minister under questioning from Committee members who want only to get things right, and who speak only in defence of the interests of individuals.

Jim Knight: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I have tried to give the information that the Committee wants. I was asked six specific questions, and although the hon. Member for Yeovil did not seem optimistic that I would attempt to answer all six, I think that I have made a fair attempt to do so. I have learned more about the Data Protection Act today than I knew about it this morning, and I have tried to impart that to the Committee. I hope that I have been helpful and that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

David Laws: We know that the Minister’s Department does not like external testing any more. However, to prove that external testing can be as good as the self-certification of which Ministers are normally in favour, I sought to mark the Minister on the six questions as he went through them.

Jim Knight: I hope that the hon. Gentleman notes that continuous oral assessment works very well.

David Laws: Sometime it does. I mark the Minister highly on his attempt to answer the six questions. He gets six out of six for that, and that is high praise indeed. Unfortunately, the mark for the quality of his answers is rather lower.
I do not want to labour that response too much, because we have been considering the clause for longer than any of us would have wished. However, before moving on, I wish to draw attention to the big holes in the Government’s case. The Minister started by reassuring us that only a certain number of officials in a local authority would be able to access the information and that that would be only for support purposes. As before, when we pressed the Minister to find out what guarantee there would be that that would be the case, a great deal of vagueness set in. I do not think that we have had any bankable assurance that the measure will not be used for enforcement purposes.
Although there is a tendency to think of enforcement as something draconian, the Government’s whole approach is that enforcement of the obligations in the Bill is in the interests of the young person. The Minister responded to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings earlier and cited the assurances in the Data Protection Act that data could be revealed if that was in the interests of the young person rather than of the institution. Unfortunately, it is the Government’s view that all that information and enforcement is in the interests of the young person, and that is precisely why we have a Bill to force through compulsion with regard to education and training for 16 and 17-year-olds. Such an assurance therefore does not give us a great deal of comfort.
We then discussed how the information will be accessed, and the Minister gave us the impression that it would be within a comfy and responsible multi-agency meeting of the type with which we are all familiar and which tends to go on for a long period of time. It all sounded responsible and sober until he was pressed on that point, and acknowledged that there was no reason why a local authority could not simply write directly to a GP to get that information. I think that he also mentioned talking about some of those issues on the telephone with a GP. Such communications might be valuable in finding out something about a young person’s needs, but they might also compromise to a large extent the ability to keep information confidential or to allow the young person to check what information was being imparted.
I have a similar concern about the issue of specific information versus a fishing expedition. The Minister gave us an assurance that the information had to be specific, as opposed to a fishing expedition of an entire range of ailments going back to German measles. I cannot imagine that such a range would be offered, but I can imagine a GP being asked about the circumstances of a young individual with multiple health problems, such as mental health problems and drug addiction. I can imagine a question that, while seeming to be quite specific, would essentially require the GP to give a whole range of information to provide a serious response.
As for conditions, the Government confirmed that the provision is open-ended and that there is wiggle room to reveal different conditions. We discovered that primary care trusts in some parts of the country can essentially flick two fingers at those provisions by deciding not to bother to give any information at all if they think that it is too burdensome, which is not reassuring. We then dealt with consent, which concerns Liberal Democrats the most and which the Minister rather rushed through, hiding again behind the Data Protection Act. His response lacked detail as to the practicalities of how the information will be sought and the safeguards about which I asked, including the time scales for response and protection for vulnerable people. The Minister repeated the words “if practicable” in relation to obtaining information from a young person, and one wonders in what circumstances it would not be practicable to obtain that permission. There are some vulnerable individuals whose permission, it might be argued, is not easy or practicable to obtain.
The Minister therefore gets six out of six for seeking to answer those questions, but major questions remain as to how the clause will work in practice and we will, no doubt, wish to return to that at a later stage. For the time being, however, I will not press this modest probing amendment to a Division, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chairman, being of the opinion that the principle of the clause and any matters arising thereon had been adequately discussed in the course of debate on the amendments proposed thereto, forthwith put the Question, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 68 and 69, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 6.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 62

Information: supply by public bodies

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 107, in clause 62, page 34, leave out lines 9 to 13.
Clause 62 replicates the data sharing provisions of clause 16 to facilitate local authority support services. I will not repeat all the concerns that were raised in relation to clause 16, except to say that it would have been better if the protections that the Minister outlined in his last contribution had been incorporated into these two clauses for the sake of certainty and clarification. I will not repeat all the arguments that have been made about the dangers and threats to privacy arising from such a vast power to share information.
The amendment seeks to remove from the list of bodies from which a local authority can request information all those organisations that do not relate directly to the education and training of the young person. It would remove the primary care trust, the strategic health authority, the chief officer of police, the local probation board and a youth offending team. It gives the Minister, should he need it, the opportunity both to justify why the power is needed and to set out the protections that he will introduce to ensure that the information is protected in transfer, and will not result in the long term in people being reluctant to disclose information lest it be used for purposes other than those for which it was originally intended.

Jim Knight: The debates we held at some considerable length on clause 16 could all be repeated in respect of this clause. I will not seek to fail to persuade the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton again using the same arguments, and will restrict my remarks to saying that the amendment would limit the supply of information to Connexions to information from local authorities and learning and skills councils. It would mean that the service would not have access to particular kinds of information that may be essential for it to determine the appropriate support for the young person.
We disagree about whether the Data Protection Act safeguards should be included in the Bill. I have said previously that it is not good for us to duplicate things in law. Overlapping measures can create confusion, which is why the provisions have been kept separate. That is perfectly normal, with the unfortunate side effect that it enables lawyers to make their money. We have that disagreement. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not agree with me, but on the basis that we have had the argument, I simply urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb: I am happy to withdraw the amendment on the grounds that we have had the debate, albeit we do not agree with the Minister about the practicalities of the powers in the two clauses. Given that we have had the debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 62 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17

Sharing and use of information held for purposes of support services or functions under this Part

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Nick Gibb: I wish to raise the issue of definitions in clause 17(7). We touched on the meaning of relevant information in earlier debates, The Minister asserted that the definition of relevant information meant that it had to be confined specifically to the purposes of providing support services. However, subsection (7) states that relevant information, in relation to a person providing or holding information, means
“information which...is held by the person for a relevant purpose”.
It goes on to define a relevant purpose in relation to a local education authority as
“the purpose of, or a purpose connected with, the exercise of any function of the authority...under this Part”.
That definition of relevant information contradicts the Minister’s assertion that the information shared under the preceding clauses will not be used for enforcement purposes. What this definition provision explicitly says, in addition to the fact that all the other clauses talk about “this Part” of the Bill, shows that the Minister misunderstands his own Bill and therefore may wish to reflect on whether amendments should be proposed on Report or in another place to confine it to the purpose for which he thinks that it has been drafted.

Oliver Heald: When Mr. Head gave evidence to the Committee, he talked about the young person
“who turned up to our NEET event in a brand new BMW series 3, who clearly was economically active”.——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 162, Q363.]
That raises the prospect that some of the 10 per cent. who will be encouraged into education may be people who, for example, are drug pushers. If someone turns up in a brand new BMW and information from health authorities or the police suggests that they have that sort of background, will it be possible to share that information with the staff, so that they can keep an eye on what is going on and ensure that the further education college does not end up being turned into a place where drugs are pushed? Can the information be used in circumstances in which it would defeat crime—that is, for a different purpose from that for which it was originally provided? If the Minister does not have the answer to hand, perhaps he will write to me.

Jim Knight: Clause 17 puts in place the legal mechanisms necessary to enable local authorities and service providers to share information among themselves where appropriate. It is particularly important in resolving the difficulties of tracking young people who move across local authority boundaries. It also enables relevant information to be collected once and used for the two purposes outlined in the clause, and so indicates our intention that that information should be stored in one place rather than two.
I think that there is a difference of opinion between the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and myself about “relevant purpose” and the importance of guidance in clause 18. As has been said, the information could be used only for the purposes of delivering a Connexions service or for the purposes of delivering on the local authority’s duty to promote the fulfilment of the duty to participate. As far as I am concerned, that is not for enforcement purposes, because people cannot enforce until they have supported, so the transfer of data will be for the purposes of support. Ultimately, young people identified as not participating can be subject to enforcement, but the information is not shared for that purpose, as I have said, because clause 39(5) and (6) say that support has to come before enforcement. On that basis, I urge the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the Committee to support the clause.

Nick Gibb: Whether or not support should come before enforcement is neither here nor there, because that is not what the Bill says. It says that the relevant information can be used for enforcement purposes. I have listened to what the Minister has said and if he wishes to be true to his word, he needs to ask his officials to draft some amendments so that the Bill reflects the intention that he expressed to the Committee, because the clause and the Bill do not reflect the intention that he has just conveyed.

John Bercow: Order. I do not wish to be excessively antediluvian about the matter because, as most Members know, I am a moderniser. I take a modernising view of most matters of procedure when I have the discretion to do so, but I gently say to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that in Committee we do not refer to officials. They are invisible—and anonymous.

Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18

Guidance

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 29, in clause 18, page 10, line 20, at end insert
‘and such guidance shall be placed in the Library of the House of Commons and notice given of the publication of the guidance by written Ministerial statement.’.
Clause 18 requires local authorities to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State in relation to part 1. The Bill is full of delegated powers. In its 150 clauses, we find 65 regulation-making powers. It is no wonder, therefore, that, on page 3, the memorandum on delegated powers published by the Government at the same time as the Bill refers to a
“framework Bill containing a range of powers to make delegated legislation.”
Delegated or secondary legislation has been used increasingly often over the past 20 years, with more and more primary legislation comprising merely a skeleton on which scores of new secondary legislative powers are hung. Every year, thousands of statutory instruments pass through the House, the overwhelming majority of which go through on the nod, unnoticed and undebated. Even if the statutory instrument is debated—perhaps a Member has prayed against it because it is subject to the negative resolution procedure or it is one of the rarer orders or regulations that are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure—debate is usually confined to 90 minutes in a Committee Room. Given that we spent more than 90 minutes debating clause 16, that period is probably not enough time for us to deal with the powers proposed in the Bill.
On page 5, the delegated powers memorandum states:
“In the majority of cases, powers to make Statutory Instruments are to be subject to negative resolution procedures except clause 3(5)...clause 5(1)...clause 49...clause 70...and clause 117...and clause 146 to the extent that the power is used to amend primary legislation”.
There are also five delegated powers to amend primary legislation—a practice that has grown during the 10 years in which I have been a Member. Over that period we have also seen the growth of tertiary legislation or guidance. It is legislation—it is known as statutory guidance—but it is rarely debated in the House. We debated the contents of the admission code because it was incorporated into law by a statutory instrument, but the vast majority of guidance is issued by the relevant Department, sometimes accompanied by a press release, some of which may, or may not, be reported in the newspapers. There is no parliamentary procedure to pray against guidance or to trigger a debate, and there is certainly no mechanism to vote against such guidance. The detail of policy contained in guidance is often fundamental to the policy, as we heard today from the Minister. He said that guidance will overrule a major part of the Bill in relation to what information can be shared.
The purpose of the amendment is to require the Government to place in the Library any guidance issued under clause 18. In order to alert Members to the fact that guidance has been issued, the amendment also requires the Minister to make a written statement announcing the issuing of the guidance. Given the importance of guidance, and the volume of statutory instruments and guidance, I believe that the amendment is fundamental in enabling Members to carry out their primary role of holding the Government to account and scrutinising legislation.

Jim Knight: I entirely agree with the intentions behind the amendment, and I shall ensure that all statutory guidance relating to part 1 is placed in the Library and that notice will be given that that has been done. It will also be published on the Department’s website. That is routine practice, and there is no need for it to be stated in primary legislation. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb: Given that explicit assurance, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 18 and 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Appropriate arrangements

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in clause 20, page 11, line 4, after ‘constituting’, insert ‘sufficient’.
You will know, Mr. Bercow, that the explanatory notes to clause 20 say what constitutes “making appropriate arrangements”. They state:
“A person has made appropriate arrangements if they have enrolled on a course or courses constituting relevant education or training (defined in clause 6), or arrangements have otherwise been made for them to receive relevant education or training, or if they are participating in full-time education...A person does not need to have enrolled for sufficient (that is, enough hours in the relevant period) relevant education or training in order to count as having made appropriate arrangements”.
I emphasise that the amendment is intended to probe the Minister for greater clarity. It would ensure that the training is rigorous and of high quality, as well as sufficient, and not merely relevant, to the needs of the learner who requires new skills. I emphasise the word “sufficient”, because I am talking about the level of learning. It is critical, if we proceed with the legislation, that the training we put in place is fit for purpose and so does the job. The amendment would ensure such an outcome, as I am sure the Minister will acknowledge.

Jim Knight: Clause 20 requires employers to check that a young person has made arrangements to participate in accredited part-time training. Requiring them in addition, as the amendment would, to check the number of hours that a young person spends in education or training would significantly increase the burden on employers. Such detailed checks would be complicated and time-consuming, and the Government do not think it appropriate to expect employers to do it.
We want provision to be of quality, but we do not think that that should be policed by employers. Young people in full-time employment have a duty to participate in sufficient part-time training, meaning for at least 280 hours a year. Employers of those young people have a duty to check that they are participating, but they do not have to check that they are doing enough hours. The amendment would put an unnecessary burden on employers and, potentially, stop a small number of young people getting a job because of the extra burdens.

John Hayes: The Minister is speeding through his account, and I am anxious that he does not reach his conclusion before he has dealt with this central point. Does he accept the argument about sufficiency? Training can be “relevant” but insufficient. Will the Minister dwell momentarily on that point?

Jim Knight: I accept the argument on sufficiency, which is why we have specified that young people should do 280 hours a year. I do not accept that that should be policed by employers. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman withdraws the amendment.

John Hayes: The Minister has accepted the principle that sufficiency is important. Doubtless he will say in a moment that he will add guidance, which is his usual fall-back position. However, I do not wish to be cruel. He accepted that sufficiency matters and, because I buy his argument that where the burden of policing and checking falls is an issue, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21

Appropriate arrangements to be in place before employment begins

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 21, page 11, line 27, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State shall, within 12 months of the coming into force of this section, publish an assessment of the implications of the duty imposed by this section on the employment prospects of 16 and 17 year olds.’.
The Committee has become accustomed to me speaking to amendments in the context of the explanatory notes. Indeed, perhaps people are grateful to me because it saves them trawling through their own papers. The explanatory notes state that clause 21
“places a duty on employers not to employ a person unless they have taken reasonable steps to check that the person has made appropriate arrangements to participate in relevant training or education. For example, an employer would check that a potential employee could produce a letter from a learning provider indicating that he or she had enrolled on a course. It provides for an exception to this if the contract is made conditional on the person making arrangements to undertake appropriate education or training, in which case they must have done so before employment commences. This enables an employer to have a role in a young person’s decision about the type of education or training to pursue.”
The amendment suggests that within 12 months of this coming into force, the Secretary of State will
“publish an assessment of the implications of the duty imposed by this section on the employment prospects of 16 and 17 year olds.”.
The reason for the amendment is that there is considerable doubt about two things, which we heard expressed very clearly in the evidence sessions by both the Institute of Directors and by the academics who came to visit, notably Professor Alison Wolf. The first issue is that of the cost to employers of this business, which, in their judgment has been underestimated by the Government, and I shall return to that in a moment. The second problem is the potential effects on the employment of 16 and 17-year-olds. Alison Wolf was outspoken on that subject. She said that she thought that a typical employer would resist employing 16 and 17-year-olds as a result of the legislation, because they would bring with them the additional burden and responsibility of training or education.
The cost of employer checking is much higher in the IOD’s estimation than the Government assume. The IOD says:
“Government figures estimate that the process of employer checking is a single exchange of paper between an employee and employer, which will take ten minutes”
and would therefore cost £16.8 million nationally.
“In reality this process will actually require a mixture of discussion, checking, altering of work rotas and/or addressing employees’ needs.”
The IOD projects that it will cost more than double that figure—its top estimate is that it could cost up to £68 million per year. The administrative burden also accounts for what it calculates to be a 32 per cent. hike in the Department’s imposition on business. That is entirely contrary to current Government policy that the Minister has articulated of reducing the administrative burden on business by 25 per cent. The consequential, unintended impact of the clause could be that employers only employ people older than the proposed compulsory age—precisely Alison Wolf’s argument.
That is especially true in the case of small and medium-sized businesses. I suspect that very large organisations, as so often with bureaucratic or administrative burdens, have the capacity to absorb the extra costs in a way that small businesses do not. For example, a small training business that employs a 17-year-old to work in numerous different jobs, will spend less time on tasks such as marketing and business, and more on burdensome administration. Therefore it is important that we review the impact of the clause after 12 months. We must find out whether the Minister is right, and the Government’s estimates are borne out, or whether the IOD and Alison Wolf are more accurate in their estimation of the detrimental effect on the employment of young people, and on the cost of businesses in respect of checking their new obligations. The amendment does just that, and I hope that the Minister will accept it in the spirit in which it is offered.

David Laws: The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has raided and shortened my speech not only by reading out part of the explanatory notes, but by covering large chunks of the notes from the Institute of Directors on the issue. Therefore, I wish not only to speak on the clause and the amendment but also to seek some guidance from you, Mr. Bercow, as to whether it would be acceptable for me to make all my comments on the clause within this debate—you know that I tabled an amendment to delete the clause—or whether you would rather have two debates on it.

John Bercow: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for seeking guidance. We do not want to end up having two clause stand part debates. Although he might be seeking to be helpful by confining his remarks to one speech at this stage, that of itself is not sufficient. Others may wish to speak in a clause stand part debate subsequent to our consideration of the amendment. Therefore, I urge him, despite his good intentions, to stick to matters that are directly relevant to amendment No. 31.

David Laws: Thank you, Mr. Bercow. In that case, I shall save the bulk of my comments for the debate on clause 21.
I have some sympathy with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. If pressed, I would even vote for it, but my concern is that, while it would provide us with useful information about the consequences of the clause, it would not actually prevent damage. It would look back at the situation from a retrospective position in the future when some of the damage that the hon. Gentleman said the clause could do to the youth labour market and to employer costs would already have been incurred. We have concerns about the Bill, and we are supportive of the amendment, but we believe that it does not go far enough in hampering the Government in their efforts to increase the burden on employers and to risk damaging the youth labour market.

Jim Knight: I shall reserve my response to what the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings said about the IOD analysis for the stand part debate and simply direct my remarks now to whether there should be an assessment published within 12 months of the measures coming into force. I will pass over my concerns about around publishing or carrying out the survey within 12 months because I accept that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make a point.
We will, of course, continue to assess the implications of our policy in conjunction with other Government Departments once the provisions come into force. My Department already produces a statistical first release each year which provides information on the youth labour market broken down into various dimensions such as employment, unemployment, inactivity numbers and the education and training status of young people. For the past three years, there has also been a more comprehensive review of the youth labour market and its interaction with the education and training market. It is part of cross-Government work with the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

John Hayes: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Knight: In one second.
A range of analyses of the youth labour market and the implementation of the raising of the participation age will be carried out by my Department and other Government Departments as we move toward 2013 and beyond. I therefore do not consider it necessary to set out a requirement in primary legislation, but I reassure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that it is our intention to carry out reviews such as those he seeks in the amendment. On that basis, I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.

John Hayes: I am glad that the Minister prevented me from intervening, because I would have anticipated his words. He seems to have offered this anyway, but I was going to ask him to ensure that the sentiments expressed in the amendment were reflected in the reviews and reports. I think that he has given assurance that that is likely to be the case. Frankly, if it were not, organisations such as the IOD would do their own survey and publish it anyway, so I suspect that it is in the Government’s interest to do so. On that basis, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

David Laws: We wish to delete the clause from the Bill because of concerns that have been aired earlier in our debates and that were aired by some of the witnesses in oral evidence. Our concerns is that the proposals in the clause and the other clauses associated with it will add quite a burden to that already placed on the business community, particularly smaller businesses.
As the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings acknowledged, this section of the Bill could seriously damage the youth labour market and raise unemployment rates for young people aged 16 and 17. We argued earlier that there are many young people for whom being in employment is extremely valuable and is often a better alternative to being in formal educational or training. Whether what they learn is accredited or not, it will often be of great value—sometimes, arguably, of greater value than the formal accreditation that would be required under the Bill.
The Institute of Directors gave evidence on this issue and indicated that while it was willing to accept the Government’s desire to ensure that young people aged 16 and 17 in employment were undertaking some type of education and training, it wanted the duty to be placed on young people themselves to take up that education and training option. It did not want the burden of checking to be placed on employers. As it is, the Bill describes a double duty: a duty on the young person himself or herself to be in appropriate education and training even if he or she is in employment, and another duty on the employer to check. Although in theory that sounds quite simple——the Government have come up with a low estimate in the regulatory impact assessment of the additional cost on business—the cost could be a great deal higher.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has already referred to some of the concerns that Alison Wolf and the IOD aired about the Government’s assumptions and, in particular, their concern that the size of the cohort affected by the proposal may be larger than the Government expect, particularly if we do not make the expected progress on participation between now and 2013 to 2015. The actual process of checking and the amount of time involved could also be longer than the Government assume, and there will be a requirement on employers to understand the guidance here, particularly given that there are penalties which can be used against employers if they do not comply with this section of the Bill.
As a consequence of having to process and understand that guidance, the cost could also rise. The IOD has therefore estimated that the Government’s original figure of £8.4 million for the regulatory burden could increase, because of those three factors, to a much larger figure of around £67 million. In the briefing note they prepared for the Committee and circulated to many Members, it says:
“this amount of administrative regulatory burden would if implemented today account for a 32 per cent. hike in the DCSF's imposition on business. Since the policy implementation will take place beyond the date of the present Government's activities to reduce administrative burdens by 25 per cent. the figure has not been accounted for in the department 's annual Simplification Plan.”
It adds:
“However, it is worth noting that if IoD projections are correct, all the Government's activities to reduce the burden of regulation on business within the DCSF's arena would be invalidated and indeed reversed by this single policy.”
What is being suggested here does not go as far as I would want to go in removing the duty entirely from the Bill and allowing young people who are in employment not to be in formal accredited education and training. The idea of the proposal to delete clause 21 and that of the IOD is not that young people in employment aged 16 and 17 should not be doing some sort of formal education and training, but that the burden of them doing so and complying with it should be on the individual and not on the business. If that were the case, the regulatory costs for business would be far lower than those estimated by the Government and some of the business organisations. Even more importantly, some of the concerns of the business community about being caught out employing 16 and 17-year-olds who are not in education or training would be significantly ameliorated. Therefore, the potential damage to the global market from the measures in the Bill could be considerably lessened. That seems to me to be the really important prize.
We should not end up inadvertently taking away employment opportunities for young people that may be more valuable for some than the accreditation that they can achieve elsewhere. My real fear about the clause and other clauses associated with it is that employers will say simply that there is too much uncertainty because of the administrative burden: because of the requirement to police the time and ensure that young people are in education and training; because of complexities that could arise when an employee joins at a mid-point through the year; and because of the issues that may arise if a young person finds themselves on a course that folds and has to identify another course to join. All those things make businesses worry about whether they can trust what young people tell them and whether they will essentially carry the can if everything goes wrong.
We would therefore like the clause deleted. I can see that I have not completely persuaded the Minister as yet, but I hope that he will reflect further during the debate. We would like him to keep his education and training obligation in the Bill, if that is what he wants to do. It is not what we want him to do, but he may still do it. However, we want him to take the responsibility off the shoulders of employers and make this a duty on young people. That would help not only employers, but far more importantly, it could help young people whose prospects will be so badly damaged if the employment consequences of these clauses are underestimated, as we think they are.

John Hayes: I have just a word on the stand part debate. I think that the point made by the hon. Member for Yeovil is worth amplifying. It is entirely possible that a perverse, unintended consequence of the legislation will be to see more young people in training, but fewer in employment. That is not the Government’s intention and is certainly not the wish of any member of the Committee, but it could happen. There is no comfort in moving from being a NEET to being a NIJIT—not in a job, in training—and we could see the birth of NIJITs as a result of the Bill.
The Government need to give this matter much more consideration. I would like the Minister to consider modelling it more carefully. There certainly needs to be a better dialogue with industry, given what we know the representatives of the small businesses, through the Federation of Small Businesses, and the larger companies, through the IOD and the CBI, are already saying. That cannot be dismissed entirely. I do not necessarily buy Alison Wolf’s argument, but I think that it is worth listening to and that it should be taken into account.
In your wisdom, Mr. Bercow, you did not call amendment No. 32, which was tabled by me and my hon. Friends. That is your privilege. However, in our judgment, the Bill places too little emphasis on in-house training that leads to accreditation on the part of business. The clause is relevant in that regard. These two things are not unrelated. It is more likely that a small or medium-sized business will take on a very young person if it is already training people in-house in an entirely wholesome and rigorous way, leading to accepted, industry-recognised qualifications. That is less likely if it feels that it has to take on a burden with which it is unfamiliar. Again, will the Minister reflect in respect of the clause on placing greater emphasis on high quality, in-house training and partnerships between business and the FE sector in delivering a mechanism to ensure greater skilling of young people that is attractive to small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular? It is high time in this House that we made a case for our small and medium-sized businesses just as it is high time that we made a case for British manufacturers who do so much. I met some last night, and I promised them that I would raise their case here today. I agree with their argument that we should shout for them more often and more loudly, which is why I am doing just that. There is a lot to be said for British manufacturers and British SMEs. We should celebrate their work and, by reflecting on the clause, perhaps the Minister can illustrate that he supports me in that endeavour.

Jim Knight: Labour Members will continue to shout for British manufacturing in the same way that we shouted for it throughout the 1980s when so much damage was done by the Government of the day. In the spirit of invest to save, I look to save on this occasion by not repeating my arguments when rebutting Alison Wolf’s comments with which I entertained the Committee in some form or another on the afternoon of 5 February. They should be taken as read. I hope that it helps the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings if I say that in-house training that is accredited will certainly count in respect of fulfilling duties.
We have said that we want duties on employers to have as light a touch as possible, and that the primary responsibility for participating will be with the young person. However, employers do have an important role in supporting young people to fulfil their responsibility, which is why if employers want to take on a young person for more than 20 hours a week in a situation when they are not providing their own accredited training, the young person will need to provide evidence that they have made arrangements to attend training or education before they can start employment. The employer will simply need to check that before allowing the employment to begin. If he does not, he will be failing to meet his duty. Employers will not be required to do anything further, such as calling the college to check that the young person was enrolled there nor would they have an ongoing duty to check that they were attending the course. As we have discussed, employers would not have to check the number of hours.
The Institute of Directors states that, in its view, fulfilling the duty to check would in each case take 20 minutes rather than the modest average time of 10 minutes for which we have allowed. As someone who has previously run a small business, that is not credible. All we are asking employers to do is look at the proof the young person provides, probably in the form of a letter that accepts them on a course in which they have made arrangements to participate. That need not be a process that is separate from the other checks that take place on commencement of employment such as eligibility for work, provision of a national insurance number, perhaps a P45, bank details and all the usual things that we go through when we commence employment.

David Laws: Will the Minister explain why it is important that employers should play a policing role? He said that he wants employers to support young people. They are not arguing against that, but against taking on a policing role. Why is that role necessary?

Jim Knight: The extremely modest policing that involves simply making a check lasting a few minutes at the commencement of employment about whether the person is enrolled on an appropriate course is just a way to ensure that those who are in jobs without training move into training in employment. It is another lever that is at our disposal as we design the system.
The Institute of Directors estimates that a further 20 minutes would be required each time a new young person is employed to read the guidance that we shall issue to employers. Bizarrely, it seems to think that employers would need to read the guidance each time that they take on a young person. That is not credible. When developing guidance, we shall want to consult organisations such as the Institute of Directors. No doubt, it will take issue with guidance even of the admirable brevity of some of our policy booklets or even this speech, but we shall certainly aspire to keep something brief and to the point. I reassure the Committee that we took the time needed to read and assimilate guidance when we made our assessment of an average of 10 minutes needed to carry out the check.
I do not accept that the duty to check is a significant burden. It is a necessary duty to place on employers. Without it, employers could—either knowingly or unknowingly—employ young people who are not participating, and thereby collude inadvertently in a young person’s failure to fulfil his or her duty. With the duty to check, there is an incentive for young people to make arrangements to participate before looking for a job, because they know that they will need to provide proof before they can start work. Not having duties on employers would seriously disrupt the balance of roles and responsibilities which is fundamental to raising the participation age successfully.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 6.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 22

Financial penalty for contravention of section 21

David Laws: I beg to move amendment No. 172, in clause 22, page 11, line 30, after ‘has’ insert ‘knowingly’.
Borrowing from the style of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, I start by reminding everybody, from the explanatory notes, that clause 22
“provides for a local education authority to serve a penalty notice on the employer and sets out the circumstances in which the notice can be given. It provides for the amount of the financial penalty to be determined by regulations, and sets out the requirements for what is included in the notice.”
Our amendment No. 172, which is modest but succinct, in case the Minister chuckles too much, would insert “knowingly” at line 30, and require that the imposition of a financial penalty against the employer depend on them knowingly having contravened section 21—in other words, knowingly having taken on a young person aged 16 or 17 without them being in education or training.
Let me refer back to my comments on clause 21. As the Minister has acknowledged, the employer is asking for relatively modest confirmation from an employee of their education and training status. Arguably, in exceptional cases, a young person might forge a letter from an education or training provider to demonstrate that they are compliant with the legislation, and the employer might be completely unaware of that fact, or might not be able to check. The implication of the Minister’s statement is that they will not be required to do so and it will all be terribly easy, with a nod and wink over a cup of coffee and a letter passed across a desk, or some other easily given assurance.
My concern is whether, if a young person forges a letter, gives incorrect information, or is on an education or training course when they first take up their employment, but ends up not being on that—perhaps because it collapses or for some other reason—the employer will be penalised even though they cannot have reasonably or knowingly been aware of that young person’s circumstances. That is the issue on which we seek clarification from the Minister.

John Hayes: Let me give a word of support for the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. It is important that we explore how high the bar is to be set for local authorities to interpret an employer’s culpability in these terms. The hon. Gentleman was right to table the amendment because it allows us to probe the matter.
It will be quite possible for an employer to take on a young person who has deceived them into thinking that he or she is involved in training. It is important that we probe the Minister further because this is a matter of concern for employers. We spoke a few moments ago about the other concerns that employers have, and similarly it is particularly important that we reassure small and medium-sized enterprises in this regard.

Jim Knight: I am delighted to be probed on this particular clause. I am absolutely clear that an employer would not receive a financial penalty if they had checked that the young person had made appropriate arrangements for training or education and were satisfied with the evidence before allowing employment to begin.
Clause 21(1) states that employers should take
“all such steps as are reasonable to ascertain, that the employee has made appropriate arrangements”.
We will make it clear in guidance what those reasonable steps should be. I am clear that there will be no requirement on the employer to verify the evidence. If it is a forgery, the local authority should act on the young person, not the employer, and we will seek to make that clear. I hope that that helps the Committee.
Accepting the amendment, however, could have undesirable consequences. It would create a loophole by enabling an employer to avoid the duty because they would know that if they were caught, they could simply claim ignorance. Ignorance should be no defence in law. Ignorance would then be sufficient justification for not fulfilling the duty at all. Not even checking the young person’s evidence that they had made appropriate arrangements for education or training would clearly be unacceptable. I hope that, in the light of that, the hon. Member for Yeovil will withdraw the amendment.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the Government’s intent. He reassured me that if the documents supplied by a young person were falsified in some way, the young person, not the employer, would be held to account. I did not manage to leap in in time to ask the Minister to clarify the other circumstance to which I referred. A young person might have legitimately got into education and training at the beginning of their employment with an employer and then dropped out of the training course three days after, or the training course might have collapsed. That individual might then have decided that there was nothing else on offer that they wanted to take up. Perhaps two or three months later, someone might discover that that young person was not in education or training. Under those circumstances, would there be an employer responsibility?

Jim Knight: There is no employer responsibility in those circumstances.

David Laws: I express my gratitude to the Minister for that reassurance. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Jim Knight: I beg to move amendment No. 54, in clause 22, page 12, line 1, after ‘education’, insert ‘authority’.
We omitted the word “authority” due to typographical error.

John Hayes: It would be quite wrong to skate over this with the speed that the Minister wants. As you know, Mr. Bercow, the amendment was tabled in my name—

Jim Knight: May I record my gratitude to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues for tabling the amendment because it reminded us of the housekeeping that we needed to do?

John Hayes: I am delighted that the Minster has acknowledged the first of many amendments that he will accept during the passage of the Bill. He has been slow to accept the first of them, but given the spirit in which he has accepted this suggestion, we hope that he will accept many more of our honourable attempts to improve the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

John Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 55, in clause 22, page 12, line 4, leave out from ‘area’ to end of line 6.
Clause 22 provides for a local education authority to serve a penalty notice——this is precisely what we discussed a few moments ago in relation to employers——and sets up the circumstances under which the notice can be published. The problem with the clause is that it is clumsy. There is no clear line of accountability in respect of a person who lives in one local education authority area and works in a different one. The amendment is probing. It aims to allow the delegation of the task from one authority to another. I hope that the Minister will deal with it in a way that will satisfy a reasonable complaint about the Bill.

Jim Knight: The amendment would limit the circumstances in which a local authority could take action against an employer in its area to those concerning a failure to check that new employees resident within the local authority’s area were in appropriate training. Any failure by the employer to check in respect of new employees resident outside the local authority’s area would not be covered.
If a local authority discovered that an employer had not been making checks, it would not be able to issue a penalty notice unless the employees were resident in the same area as the employer, but it could contact the employees’ local authority and ask it to take action. If there were a large number of employees to whom the failure to check applied, that could be a very bureaucratic and time-consuming task for both the local authority, which might need to contact a number of other authorities, and the employer, who would then have to respond to penalty notices issued by more than one authority.
The amendment would unnecessarily complicate the system, which is designed to ensure that employers play their part in enabling and encouraging young people to participate in education or training. On that basis, I hope that the very reasonable hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will withdraw his reasonable amendment.

John Hayes: I am a reasonable man. The intention behind the amendment is not to limit the power of the local authority, but to extend it in the sense that it would be able to work with other local authorities to do the job that the Minister describes. However, I accept that that might involve additional administrative cost and burden. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 22, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 24

Duty to enable participation initial arrangements

David Laws: I beg to move amendment No. 180, in clause 24, page 12, line 32, at end insert
‘during that employee’s normal working hours’.
I shall not detain the Committee by reading out the explanatory notes on clauses 24 and 25 because they are rather long, but I refer the Committee to them. We are about to deal with a number of amendments that deal with the degree of flexibility that employees will have to take up their education and training obligations at times that suit both them and their employers. In some of the evidence that we took earlier, as well as in the Bill, there is an understandable desire for flexibility to ensure that employers are not discouraged from taking on young people. That is particularly the case in clause 25, which seeks to ensure that the education and training option is taken up flexibly.
We would like to have some reassurance about the burdens that will be placed on young people as a consequence of the responsibilities in the Bill, and the understandable desire that there will be among employers not to lose young people at a critical time. The amendment would ensure not only that the employer must permit the employee to stay in training or education, but that that should be during normal working hours. In other words, the employer would not be able to foist unreasonable responsibilities on employees and to require them to take up their training and education options outside the time that they are working, particularly if they are working full time.
Although we understand Ministers’ desire to have young people undertaking a combination of employment and education or training at the same time, we would be concerned if the effect of the Bill were that some young people would have to be doing full-time jobs and all their education and training outside that. Perhaps that is not the Government’s intention, but that is what we are hoping to explore with the amendment and I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurances or recommendations on that point.

John Hayes: I shall keep my remarks extremely brief. In adding to the conversation about this useful amendment, I invite the Minister to enlighten the Committee as to what study the Government have made of the likely effects on employment of the young people that the hon. Gentleman spoke about. It is inconceivable that the Government have not modelled this; we have had this debate a number of times and it is again coming to a head around this series of clauses. It would be useful if the Committee could have some understanding of what modelling the Government have done, which might well refute the claims made by Professor Wolf and others, but at the very least would inform our discussion.

Jim Knight: Naturally, we have carried out a degree of research and the impact assessment reflects that. For example, of those young people between the ages of 16 and 19 who are working, 66 per cent. work part time, 34 per cent. full time. Of the latter, 1,680 are in jobs without training, working in small and medium-sized enterprises and paid less than the national minimum wage for people above the age of 18. Those are the ones whom we think would be particularly affected by the legislation, but I do not want to rehearse all the arguments that I made on 4 February.
My view is that it should be for the employer, following a discussion with the young person, to decide how the employment contract will enable the young person to participate, rather than for it to be set out in law as the amendment would do. In some cases, a young person might participate in learning during their normal working time by way of their employer permitting them to take time off, but in many cases, the young person’s course times might simply fall outside their working time, their contract being drawn up so that normal working time does not clash with course times. Of course, it is not our intention to force young people to undertake their learning in the evenings and weekends, but sometimes they might prefer it. For instance, a young person working in retail could be working evenings and weekends, and therefore be in learning on weekdays, or they could be participating through evening or Saturday or even Sunday classes if they are available.
It is important to ensure that young people are not subjected to onerous, unnecessary or antisocial working or training hours. It is perhaps worth noting that the Working Time Regulations 1998 provide protection for young workers regarding their working time, both in terms of the number of hours and when those hours can be undertaken. Nothing in the Bill changes that protection, but the flexibility in the Bill is important and it would be taken away by the amendment. That could damage the youth labour market and be burdensome on employers. In light of that, I hope that the hon. Member for Yeovil will withdraw his amendment.

David Laws: I am not sure that the Minister is being entirely fair to me and the amendment, because my reading of the provision at subsection (2) is that it requires the employer to permit the employee to participate. It says,
“permit the employee to participate in training or education”
at a particular time. Nothing in the amendment would prevent an employee who wished to undertake their course in the evening or outside regular working hours from doing so. Is there not a danger that employees who do not wish to do their course in evenings, after a full-time job throughout the week, might end up being obliged to do so? Will the Minister provide any reassurance that that would not be the case? Will he acknowledge that the amendment in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West would not prevent young people from undertaking education and training courses in the evening, if they wish to do so?

Jim Knight: The flexibility in the legislation is there so that employees can do their full-time work and then fulfil their responsibility to undertake 280 hours of education or training a year. The Committee has discussed that flexibility at length. The employer and employee would discuss it on the commencement of employment as governed by clauses 21 to 23. If arrangements change, further discussions would take place.

David Laws: Perhaps I have misunderstood the Government’s intention. Under the Bill, as it stands, could an employer say to a young person, “Fine, do your education or training, but regardless of that nonsense we want you here during the day, so you will have to do it at 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening—take it or leave it!”?

Jim Knight: I am looking for the relevant provision in the Bill. Naturally, the employer must behave reasonably. Clause 24(2) states:
“The employer must permit the employee to participate in training or education in accordance with those appropriate arrangements.”
If the employer is unduly unreasonable in rejecting arrangements as inappropriate, or requiring the young person to do something that they think is unreasonable, they have the option not to take up the job. That might be a bit extreme, but the important thing is that both parties are reasonable. We will discuss later clauses on changing arrangements, but it is important to note now the provisions in clause 25(3) for matters that would be discussed, which include the
“needs of the person in order to fulfil the duty”,
which is significant. They would also include the
“circumstances of the employer’s business”,
which ought to be respected, and the
“effect of the person’s absence from work on the running of that business.”
Such considerations would enter the discussion.

David Laws: I shall not try the Committee’s patience any further, because we are about to turn to another amendment raising similar concerns. I shall not press the Committee to divide on my amendment, therefore, but I hope that at some stage——if not later today, in the course of the next few weeks——we might receive reassurances from Ministers greater than the backstop reassurance that the Minister sought to give when he said that a young person could simply choose to lose their employment opportunity, which does not seem particularly satisfactory. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 25

Duty to enable participation: arrangements subsequently notified

David Laws: I beg to move amendment No. 173, in clause 25, page 14, line 5, at end add—
‘(8) No part of this section shall have such effect as to compel a person to whom this Part applies to work in the evenings or at weekends where this is outside the conditions of the contract of employment.’.
I fear that we are touching on issues and concerns similar to those addressed by the previous amendment, but in a slightly different way. What if an employer who is not particularly enthusiastic about the Bill, which is quite understandable from my party’s point of view, recognises their education or training obligation, but says, “Fine, do it on Saturday. Do it at 9 o’clock in the evening”, when it is outside the conditions of the contract of employment? Will there be any protection, or will the backstop for that also be that the young person must simply give up the job opportunity or end up potentially working a vast number of hours both in formal employment and in education or training during the week?

Jim Knight: I have now found the relevant clauses to which I refer the hon. Gentleman. Clause 24(2) states that:
“The employer must permit the employee to participate in training or education in accordance with those appropriate arrangements.”
The appropriate arrangements are defined in clause 20. With regard to subsequent notification, clause 25(2) states that:
“The employer must, so far as is reasonable having regard to the matters mentioned in subsection (3), permit the person to participate in training or education in accordance with those appropriate arrangements.”
Therefore, there are clearly obligations on the employer. They cannot simply be unreasonable in that respect.
Obviously, there are working time regulations that also protect young workers from being exploited, which was a concern of the hon. Gentleman’s. Young workers may not work or attend relevant training in the restricted period, which is normally between 10 pm and 6 am. I hope that there are not too many young workers working in the Palace tonight. If the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Yeovil is intended to stop young people being compelled to work in the evening or at the weekend against the terms of their contract, it is unnecessary.
One course of action under the clause would be to allow the young person time off in normal working hours. If those hours did not already include evenings and weekends, that course of action could not have the effect of requiring them to work then. The other course of action would be for the young person and their employer to agree to vary the terms of the contract so that the course times were outside the normal working hours. If that course was taken, there would be a new contract, with new terms and conditions and the working hours would be within those.
If, on the other hand, the intention of the amendment is to prevent any changes from being made to the original contract, even by mutual agreement, that result in a young person working in the evening or at the weekend when they have not before, I would resist that, as it seems an unnecessarily restrictive amendment to the arrangements that employers and employees can make. It is certainly not the intention of the policy to encourage or require young people to work evenings and weekends if they do not want to, as I have stated. It is important that we retain the flexibility in the clause.
If necessary, and if the employer of the young person agrees, any contract that does not already cover evening and weekend working could be varied by mutual agreement. The clause does not require that, but we think that it is a necessary flexibility. We hope, on that basis, that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

David Laws: I am not sure whether I should be completely reassured by what the Minister has said. I think that I need time to read his rather hastily read comments and to establish whether I should be reassured or whether I should not be hoodwinked. As I need that deliberation time, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

David Laws: I beg to move amendment No. 174, in clause 25, page 14, line 5, at end add—
‘(8) This section shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has published guidance.’.
I think that I can also deal with this amendment in a short time. The clause is quite significant. Subsection (3) specifies some elements that must be taken into account by the employer in relation to the needs of the person who is required
“to fulfil the duty imposed by section 2”.
They may also take into account
“the circumstances of the employer’s business”
and
“the effect of the person’s absence from work on the running of that business.”
Those matters are all potentially complex in terms of making judgments and it is not obvious to me how those judgments would be made.
Amendment No. 174 would require that the subsection shall not come into force until guidance has been published in relation to the clause. That would also give us a better clue to answering some of the questions posed by subsection (3). I wanted to find out from the Minister whether there is a plan to publish such guidance or whether it is already available somewhere and I have missed it.

Jim Knight: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Yeovil for giving me the opportunity to clarify for the Committee that we intend to issue guidance to employers, so that they know how to fulfil their duties. I think that I mentioned that earlier. We do not believe that the duty will be an excessive burden on employers and we would not want there to be any suggestion that one of the employers’ duties might not come into force at the same time as all the other duties set out in the Bill, as that would reduce the impact of the policy. Naturally, as we are going to discuss in clauses 29 and 30, there are mechanisms to withdraw enforcement notices to ensure that employers are treated fairly. On the basis of that reassurance, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

David Laws: I am grateful for the reassurance, but is the Minister in a position to say when the guidance might be available? Having some idea of how the Government will view such matters would be useful to the Committee and to the deliberations of the House while we are debating the Bill. There are some complex judgments to be made, which will have an important bearing on how the clause, particularly subsection (3), is applied. Could we have some kind of date? If that date is a long distance in the future, is there any chance of having a helpful letter from the Minister to the Committee to enlighten us all?

Jim Knight: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to intervene again. As we said before, on guidance, we are some way away from the measure coming into effect, so it would not be appropriate for us to circulate draft guidance, which might then be superseded by events. However, I will certainly reflect on whether I can circulate some thoughts to the Committee in order to assist.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Minister and will press the matter no further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 26 to 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Michael Foster.]

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Seven o’clock till Thursday 21 February at Nine o’clock.